


Funeral, With Violets

by A_Candle_For_Sherlock



Category: Sherlock (TV), Sherlock Holmes & Related Fandoms
Genre: Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Established Relationship, Established Sherlock Holmes/John Watson, Grief/Mourning, Loss of Parent(s), M/M, POV John Watson, Sherlock's Past, Trust
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-11-20
Updated: 2016-11-20
Packaged: 2018-08-30 10:47:51
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,764
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8530099
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/A_Candle_For_Sherlock/pseuds/A_Candle_For_Sherlock
Summary: John's been through so many funerals, but with so few open caskets. The sorts of deaths they met with in Afghanistan inevitably resulted in bodies that could not be viewed. In some ways that had been easier; to go on with the idea of the living, laughing person undisturbed in your mind, never actually seeing the proof that the substance of them had left.





	

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Cheshire_Cat_Grin](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Cheshire_Cat_Grin/gifts).



There were flowers everywhere, sprays of color set about on vases and stands, softening the darkness; crowds of black hats and coats and dresses filling the dark, quiet room. Late afternoon light from the back windows filtered through half-drawn drapes over a crowd of people she'd have laughed to see; most of whom he'd never met, which almost felt embarrassing. How could he not have guessed how much more there was to her life? Here he was surrounded by strangers, waiting in line just to reach the viewing area. The soft-faced woman bending over the casket now was crying silently, touching the corners of her eyes with a tissue. They were surrounded in the warm, sweet, earthy smell of the vases and stands and wreaths of lilies and roses and wild fern, stronger near the front; it felt hard to breathe. He turned to look for Sherlock; found him leaned up against the back wall, eyes on the ground, his whole body thrumming, his endless energy compressed and packed down into something appropriate for a funeral--finding its way out unobtrusively through a bouncing leg, two fingers tapping out a frenetic rhythm on his thigh. John hadn't asked if he'd come up with him to see the casket; had felt without needing to be told that Sherlock wouldn't be capable just now of the clear, cool detachment he brought to viewing an ordinary body on any ordinary day. And Sherlock, for all the theater of the dramatic he made out of daily life, was so very private a man in his loves. What he'd allowed John to see of the depths in him, lately, only proved how much there was that Sherlock never let show. He couldn't face something like this in a room full of strangers.

One more person ahead, and then he'd be there. John's been through so many funerals, but with so few open caskets. The sorts of deaths they met with in Afghanistan inevitably resulted in bodies that could not be viewed. In some ways that had been easier; to go on with the idea of the living, laughing person undisturbed in your mind, never actually seeing the proof that the substance of them had left. He stepped up to the front. The casket was such a solid, certain thing to face, and disturbingly bright; the blooming wreath of flowers atop it, the underside of the raised lid lined with pink satin, incongruous, too fussy. She was subtler than that, he thought, and never so conventional. He took a breath and looked in; took a moment to take in the still lines of the fragile, empty body, the mask of the face, the simple lack of her there. No spark of laughter, no warmth in the set of the mouth, nothing of her courage in the slack, powdered skin. He turned away. Thank you, he thought, for everything; years of everything. You were always there, and I scarcely understood how I needed that.

The home had provided an officiant, a man who held funerals for a living, who hadn't known her. He gave the standard speech, in a gentle, tired voice; the standard prayer; but then he asked anyone who liked to come up and share a little, and the stories started, years of her life laid out in the form of all the people she'd fed, and fussed over, and loved, and drawn in the way she'd drawn them in, into a home they hadn't realized would be their home till it had happened. She'd made it mean something first, made it a place where Sherlock wasn't on his guard; where he laughed with her, and spun and shouted over cases, and played out his longings and frustrations and everything he couldn't say through the wordless voice of his violin, and John got his first glimpse of what they would be; had felt safe, for the first time since he'd been very small. Had felt seen.

Through the service Sherlock sat beside him, steadily breathing, blinking, present but strangely alone. The sharing and songs went by without altering his expressionless expression. John reached once for Sherlock's hand, cradled carefully it in his own, but it lay cool and limp in his palm and after a moment he let it go; scrubbed away the few tears that escaped his control quietly, and didn't look to Sherlock for anything like help; it didn't seem fair to bring him into it; he looked like he'd gone so far inside himself just to manage this a little.

When the last prayer was over, and people were standing, murmuring their greetings and partings and gathering their things, Sherlock blinked; looked round; rose to his feet with John's movement. Across the room, Greg Lestrade was making his way through the rows of folding chairs in their direction. Sherlock bent over and said low in John's ear, "I'm going home."

"All right." They'd done this so many times since he'd returned to Baker Street and they'd decided that pretty nearly everything was better when they did it together. They'd go out when they were asked, to a press conference, a birthday party, a holiday gathering at Mummy and Daddy Holmes'; and when Sherlock's anxiety (what they called aloud his intolerance for crowds) became too much, he'd leave on his own. John would stay a while until he'd satisfied his need for the wider world, for laughter and conversation that didn't revolve around murder pending or past, and friends who saw the world in ordinary, cheerful ways. He didn't really want to live like that all the time, but it was nice to see it was all still out there. He'd get his own cab home.

He watched Sherlock stride away through the crowd, head up, back straight, looking untouchable. He was the only one who would notice the stiffness of Sherlock's stride, the absence of its ordinary ruthless grace. He sighed; turned to meet Greg's approach and he let himself be taken in a rough and startling hug; said, "We will miss her, then, won't we?"

"Yeah. God, yeah, we will. Going to be strange to stop over now and not hear her hello on the way in. He all right?" Greg was looking toward the side door Sherlock had just swept out through.

"Don't know yet. He hasn't said a word about it. We haven't had to do something like this together since--well. Since Mary, and the baby. And that was quite different. He was so busy helping me I'm not sure he had time to feel it properly, himself. He hasn't been acting all that differently since--Just--Really quiet, I suppose is the sum of it."

"I wouldn't have the faintest idea where to start. Give him a murder and let him play with it, that was the best I could do when he was badly off, before you came along."

"You think I'll do better?"

"Sure you will. You're already doing better for him than I ever did, just being there with him. Better than any of us could do, even--her. That's all he's ever really wanted. You. He's never been so good as he is when you're there."

"Greg--" He couldn't find words. Greg gripped John's arm, and shook it gently; smiled a little.

"He'll be all right in a while. He's got you."

 

He came into the flat with his arms full of flowers; a vase overflowing with lilies and ferns in one arm, and an enormous flowered wreath and a little pot of living violets in the other. Mrs. Turner had heaped them in his arms when he said he'd be going. Sherlock, still in his black shirt, but with the sleeves rolled up and rubber gloves on, straightened up from the microscope and said, "No."

"Hullo, Sherlock. I'll bin the vase and the wreath. I want to keep the violets."

"I'll be able to smell them around the flat. No."

"They're pretty. They're alive. She'd have liked them, Sherlock."

Sherlock keeps looking at him; makes a small movement as if to turn and leave the room, shakes his head and just stands there. John's sleep-deprived and sad and properly wrung out, so it takes him a moment to realize that Sherlock's fingers are trembling at his sides; that his mouth has pressed into a line that's more frightened than fierce. Then, "I can't," Sherlock says, and his eyes glimmer with the beginnings of tears.

"Oh," John breathes, and turns, and walks out of the flat again; sets the flowers down on the landing, and comes back. "I'm sorry," he says, standing near enough that Sherlock could touch him if he wanted to. Sherlock makes a soft sound in his throat, doesn't look away; his eyes are dark with all the unspoken things, the days of silence since the call had come that she was in hospital with massive heart failure and they had hours, not days, to understand it, make it real. John's close enough to hear the tremor in his breath.

He trusts me, John thinks. He trusts me now.

He reaches out, takes Sherlock's face in both his hands, carefully. Sherlock's eyes slide closed with a shudder, and the first tears fall.

John curls one hand around his neck, draws him nearer. He gasps and droops into John; presses cheek against cheek. John can feel Sherlock's tears wetting both their faces, running down his neck, dampening the collar of his shirt. Sherlock's trembling in his arms, choking a little on every breath, but very nearly silent as he weeps.

"She loved you," he murmurs, and feels Sherlock's soft sob against his skin.

"God knows why," he whispers, but John can hear the smile in the words.

Finally Sherlock sighs, and rubs his face against John's slowly, once, twice, and pulls away; wipes his cheeks with his hands like a child. His eyes flash an enormous, wordless tenderness; and then he turns away to find his violin.

John strips off his good jacket, leaves it on a chair, and goes to put the kettle on; listens to the violin give sound and shape to the grief, the memories. John settles into his chair with his steaming mug to listen; cries a little. Then he dries his face and goes to bin the flowers; but the music stops when he reaches the door and Sherlock says quietly, "Keep the violets, John."

John meets his gaze. Sherlock's eyes are gentle. He waits until John nods; and then he lifts his bow again, and the music pours out.

**Author's Note:**

> Done for sherlockchallenge's November prompt on Tumblr.


End file.
